Uganda Travel Blog
23 February 2008
I have entered another ... what, I don't know. It's not so much another world as another reality, outside Uganda entirely.
I have just returned from Moroto district, the land of the Karamajong of north eastern Uganda. This is not a place like anywhere else in Uganda. The land is more like what I hear of northern Sudan, though strangely it reminds me of the southern Utah and Arizona deserts. The people and their villages remind me of Kenya, and the place is full of cattle rustlers.
As I feared, the UBoS team was late. I spent my first day with the district officer, Thomas, as we went around to numerous NUSAF projects to get an idea of the place and programs. Eventually the UBoS team arrived and I observed the survey for a day and a half, then left for Kitgum. Here's a description of what I saw in the three days I was with the Karamajong.
We came in from the south. Sitting at the entrance to the district is this monolith. I was immediately reminded of Monument Valley in Utah. The air even smells the same.
We went from green trees and bushes to low grass and few trees. I immediately felt at home in the arid climate. Honestly, everything reminds me of Arizona: the sky, the cold nights, the complete lack of anything but dirt, sparse trees and some small cactus. The sun is hot, but the wind is cool, though it blows a lot of dust around. Most of my clothes are now brown.
The road was ok, though some parts were difficult. This is the road into the district. If you look closely you can see the bridge, over a large dry river, is barely still standing. Mototo is very flat, though every once in a while there's as extinct volcano just sitting there.
The people live in villages unlike anywhere else in Uganda. Instad of the open, minimally populated homesteads, 50 to 100 homes are all together with a bushy outerwall and a tightly packed inner wall of wood. The structure of the villages is natural to the area though. There is not much farmering, with only a little sorgum grown. Mainly the people have a lot of livestock (it's not a great place for vegetarians: my meals consisted of a boiled egg for breakfast, beans for lunch and a spinanch like vegetable common all over the north for dinner), which leads to one of the major past times being cattle rustling.
Some communities still consider stealing cattle to be a rite of passage for a young man, and this means a lot of fighting between villages, and a lot of fights between other ethinic neighbors. The Acholi have been having a very serious problem with the Karamajong as the Acholi don't traditionally guard their cattle as stongly, and karamajong raiders have been coming in stealing cattle for at least 20 or 30 years now. Between the Karamajong and UPDF soldiers, the Acholi now have no cattle of their own left.
An interesting side note. Though guns are illegal, most of the Karamajong have them. I was present as UPDF soldiers were going house to house in Moroto trying to disarm the local people, which is obviously dangerous work.
During raids on other villages they use the guns to scare the people, and oftentimes kill someone. But one thing they never do is burn the villages. Notice from my description how easy it would be to burn down an entire village, especially in the dry season. The reason they give for not doing this is because it's not about killing, but getting the cattle. But wouldn't it be easier to get a lot more cattle if you kill the people? My theory is we have here a great example of a social norm that avoids the kind of arms race/retribution situation where every village in Karamajong is eventually destroyed. Those of you familiar with my work on conflict know that I believe very strongly in increasing institutions that slow or decrease arms races of this kind. Perhaps this a kind of UN like institution that takes us from high arming (like America) to lower arming (like Europe), without losing security?
The men also sometimes have clothing like the Scottish, though they mostly go around with a wrap, like the Masai or Ghanaians, or, even more likely, with nothing at all. I had read reports where every leader of Uganda from Idi Amin onward has had to make harsh laws in Karamajong to get the men to wear anything at all, but, as I have seen myself, still today the men resist. Here some cattle ranchers are giving their animals some water. This is the traditional cattle of the north: fat and without horns. Because of problems with raiders, cattle in Acholiland are being replaced with southern longhorn cattle. Of course, in the south I hear their cattle are being replaced with American heifers, so the cycle of oppression is complete.
One of the reasons for the desolation is it's the dry season. This is a view of a "river" near the borehole. In the distance is Mount Moroto.
Moroto town is situated at the foot of Mount Moroto. This is another view of the mountain, which I think could be taken out of any part of the Arizona desert.
The town itself is small, and a little rustic. I can't imagine that this place would meet Shell standards in the US.
When UBoS arrived, we met in the sub-county headquarters. The first part of the survey is the group questionnaire. Here is the team leader, James, asking the members of a group their names for the group roster.
Here one of the enumerators administers an individual questionnaire to a random group member. The questionnaire is a little long and should have taken about 75 to 90 minutes, though this enumerator took about 2.5 hours. There looks to have been a mis-communication with UBoS as the questionnaire is not in the local language, so the interviewer is translating back and forth, while sometimes reading from a translated version he has, while other times speaking in English, which is not widely known amoung some of the poorer people. I've had to contact UBoS with this issue as it will mean more time to do the survey and some potential errors in the responses. It also means I earned my pay as this would not have been caught if I wasn't in the field, but I wish this would not be the case. Its not really so bad, just disappointing that UBoS is operating this way.
The outward journey to Kitgum was an adventure. We took a route even the driver had never used before, through Kotido, then Kaabong, then north near Kidepo Park and over the Orom mountains. This is not an especially safe route as there are still a lot of raiders, so I had a UPDF guard the whole time.
Just before Kotido we went through a game park, and near the road we saw a lot of ostriches. I was not even aware that there were any in Uganda!
The land around Kotido is really barren, though the the mountains are more interesting and common than in Moroto. I also saw my first Ugandan donkey's, which I guess are popular with the Karamajong.
This is my final view of Karamoja, from near Kaabong. I think I'll come back and film an American western movie here one day ...
Overall, I really liked Karamoja a lot. I think the stong community atmosphere makes this an ideal place to do community based programming, and there is still a large need for health and agriculture infrastructure in the villages. Plus, unlike the humid climate in Acholiland, the tempurature just feels right to me.
11 February 2008
I have returned to Uganda for the month of February in order to finish up the work I had begun on my last trip. I don't know if it's the country, or the idea of finally getting this part of the project wrapped up, but I am very excited to be back. I don't have any photos to post yet, but I'll give a short desription of what I've been up to so far.
Today I went with enumerators from the Unganda Bureau of Statistics (UBoS) to a slum area in Kampala where a lot of people from the West Nile region live. West Nile is in the north west of the country, has the largest percent of Muslims in Uganda, and was the home of Idi Amin, Uganda's leader in the 1970s, one of Africa's worst dictators and a former neighbor of mine in Saudi Arabia. We went to the area in order to practice the questionnaire in one of the languages we will be using while in the north. I knew about the slums in Kampala, but I'd never been to one. I was shocked by how bad it was, though still much better than any of the camps the Acholi live in.
We hired UBoS to run the survey of the Northern Ugandan Social Action Fund (NUSAF) back in September, but delays from the Ugandan government has meant we are only now beginning. My job for this trip is to observe the training, help with any issues that arrise with the questionnaire, help with organizing the field work, follow the teams into the field to observe the work and arrange for some future work that we want to do. Overall I have been very impressed with everyone at UBoS. The enumerators have a lot of experience, are very smart and really want to understand the questionnaire, while the management is very engaged in the project. They're a little expensive, but I think they're well worth the cost. Of course, we'll know for sure when we're out in the field collecting the data.
When I'm not working I've been spending my time catching up with some old friends. Pia (see my earlier posts) is now back in Uganda working with the cell phone company MTN, the micro-finance NGO Grameen Bank, and an undisclosed partner. She's doing an evaluation of a village telecommunications project with Dean Karlan, an economist from Yale with a lot of experience in running evaluations.
She's been busy with work, but, as usual, she's made a lot of interesting friends here. My favorite so far is John, the minister of ICT (basically, the IT arm of the government), who's only 3 years older than me. We had drinks with him and a Grameen bank edmployee and talked for quite a while about everything from how I can get him cheap laptops, to how dangerous the motor-cycle taxis are.
My first night in town I didn't have a place to stay, so I crashed at Pia's place, which she shares with two freelance journalists from, of all places, Irvine. They have a nice place outside the city center. My work though is all in town, so I looked around and decided on staying at the Speke Hotel. It's way more luxurious than I would need, but it's close to everything and has a great cafe in front. The in-room desk also means I am getting a lot of work done, both for the project and for my dissertation.
A side note - while writing this I just ran into an old friend from the north, Amandine. She runs an NGO in Gulu and has just moved into a new apartment here in Kampala. So many people I know are settling down here.
1 December 2007
This will be my last post for this part of my time in northern Uganda. I leave in 1 week, on December 8, for Arizona. I'll be there for a day to visit my family, then go back to Irvine to begin finishing my dissertation.
While I have had an incedible time, I am looking forward to returning home to the US, at least for a small break. My top 5 reasons for looking forward to the US are:
5. Movies. Here its either Nigerian or a US DVD of Transformers.
4. Service. EVERY waitperson here walks away half way through your order and you have to call them back. Customer service does not exist.
3. Being a citizen with rights. Living in a country where you are a guest is hard. Sorry for all those that do it in the US.
2. Mexican Food. I need it bad!!!
1. My friends. I really do miss them all.
First, here's a small update on my time here.
My boss is now in town with his wife. I went to Kampala to meet them this last weekend. I got on a bus at 5am (the only bus) and got to enjoy the early morning mist. This photo is from out the window as we passed over the main bridge, over the Acwa river, in the north.
I didn't go to Kampala to meet my boss though, I really went because I had to fix my visa. Like the fool I am, I let it expire, so I had to get that fixed. I really didn't want to go as a big conference was going on in the capital called CHOGM. It is a yearly meeting of the heads of the commonwealth countries, and it was a big deal in the city. The queen of England and Prince Charles were there, along with a lot of other important people. I and everyone else expected the place to be shut down, but in fact everything was pretty smooth, though with a lot of military patrols.
After some good Mexican food, my next act in the US will be to get a hair cut. Today at the bus park, one of the motorcycle drivers thought I was a woman and said "hello madam". I can't blame him though, my hair is a mess!!
9 November 2007
The last few weeks have been pretty busy for me. All of my projects are still on hold, but I have still kept busy with preperations. We also have another project in the works with UNHCR on people's return back to the villages, so I've been doing some reading and thinking about that.
While things have not been too interesting for me, politically though the last few weeks have been very important here. The LRA rebel group has sent a delegation to Uganda to continue the peace talks (without any senior members though as the ICC is looking for five members now and could arrest them when traveling), and the second in command of the LRA has gone missing (and presmed killed by the LRA leader) in the DRC, where the LRA is now based.
The most discussed of these two pieces of news here is about the likely death of Vincent Otti (the second in command of the LRA, who I share a name with). He's been with the group since the beginning and is wanted by the International Criminal Court for numerous war crimes, including child abductions and directing a massacre in Gulu a few years ago where 300+ people died. Supposedly a rift developed within the LRA (Kony, the LRA leader, thinks Otti is too liberal with the peace process), and Kony had Otti arrested and killed. Kony spoke with the LC5 of Gulu, Norbert Mao (see previous post) last night by phone and said Otti is not dead but under house arrest pending investigation for plotting to take over the LRA. Few people here believe that Otti is still alive though.
Despite being generally considered the most violent and culpable of the LRA leaders, the news about Otti is being recieved here sadly. The Acholi are split between those that want Otti brough to local justice, and those that want forgiveness for him. No one wants him to die early, or to go to the ICC. This feeling is partly pragmatic as Otti was in favor of the peace process, so people are worried a more radical attitude may be taking over the LRA.
An LRA delegation came to Kampala last week to meet with the president and the Ugandan delegation. It is composed of three senior commanders and three official representatives. They went up to Gulu on Monday, and are in Kitgum today. I was fortunate to hear about it and got there in time to see the delegation. They set up a tent on the main field in town and a lot of people came to see it. This is a view of the crowd from hilltop, near my house.
Here's a view from the outside.
Inside the place was packed with people.
Here is the SPLA (South Sudanese force) commander of the delegation. The Sudanese are helping to mediate the talks. In the background you can also see the military representatives from Kenya, South Africa, Mozambique and Tanzania. Luckily the commander spoke in English, so I could understand him. His basic message was that the conflict is a pan-African conflict, so all countries want to see a positive end to the peace talks. The non-military guy standing is one of the LRA representatives who was translating the SPLA cmmanders speach into Acholi.
Here are the two biggest political leaders of Gulu district. They came along with the delegation in their tour of the north. The one on the right is Norbert Mao, the LC5 chairman. This is the highest political office in the district, making him essentially the govener of the district. He is incredibly popular in the north, and also in the rest of the country. I have a good photo of him in my last post. He is likely to be the only guy that could beat Museveni in the next presidential election (though he is still a long shot). Technically, his title is chairman Mao, though he has no relation (that I am aware of) to the Chinese.
Next to Mao is the RDC of Gulu. The RDC is the partner of the LC5 chairman, but is appointed by the national government. He is essentially the political mouthpeice of the NRM, the political party of Museveni. Stangely enough, he is also very popular and works well with Mao. As you can see in the photo though, he was a little bored by the delegations speaches and started reading a book. As an interesting note, if you look at the photo at the bottom of my blog here, you can see his daughter, Winnie, who works with me in NUSAF.
The most interesting part of the delegations visit was at the beginning when everyone arrived. After everyone sat, a local muscian took the microphone and began to sing a song about the desire of people in the north for peace. Somehow he convinced everyone in the delegation to get up and dance with each other. This is a video of the Acholi leaders dancing with the LRA delegation and all of the soldiers! Sorry, its a little long, but they went on for a while. Personally, I think all peace talks should begin like that.
20 October 2007
After taking the last week off to travel in the south west, I am now back to work in the north.The last few weeks were very interesting, so this will actually be a long post, composed of basically two parts: first, me complaining about the roads/travel conditions; second, a description of one of the most beautiful and peaceful places I have ever found anywhere in the world. The highlights include me travelling on a lorry, yelling at the conductor of a mini bus, falling off and crashing on a motorbike, nearly capsizing on a canoe, and, in an inspired moment of pure beauty, doing nothing for 3 days while living with birds, monkeys and a dog.
A few weeks ago I and the research manager on my new project, Godfrey, spent the night in Orom, a camp in the west most part of Kitgum district. Officially I was there to do some pre-testing of a new survey, but I was also interested to see the place. I spent the night in another camp once, Opit, about a month back, but that place was much different. I was visiting a researcher then that we are now working with, Eric, who is doing surveys on people returning to their villages. Opit is one of the largest camps in the north, with about 26,000 people. It's only 1 hour from the second largest city in Uganda, Gulu, and they have electricity. Orom is smaller (about 16,000 people), no electricity, and 3 hours from Kitgum. Plus, since I knew no one there, there was no chance of being distracted by work if I didn't want to be. An interesting thing I noticed about the place is that there is no one out on the main street during most of the day. This is due to the fact that most people in this camp have partially returned home to work their fields. Some people even spend most of their time in their villages, only spending a day or two in the camp every week. Also, it's really hot in the day, so a lot of people hide indoors.
This is a view of my "backyard", by which I mean the place behind the "hotel" we stayed at in Orom. By "hotel" I mean a bunch of rooms side by side in a small complex. It was ok, not so bad. No electricity or running water of course. Basically, the IDP camps are built around trading centers and the people were forced by the military to move there with no assistance. People just built huts wherever they could. The "hotel" was in a brick building, but the camp grew up right next to, and behind, it. The camps are made up of huts, just like this, all built very close to each other. While there are some parts of Africa where people live in large groups like this, this is much different for the Acholi. Normally, in the village a family would consist of about 2-3 huts in the middle of their fields, which are many acres wide, while most families in the camps have to fit into just 1 hut. On top of that, the water and sanitation situation is often poor. To the right in the photo, behind the huts, are the toilets I had to use. I'll save the description of them.
This next photo is of Mount Orom, as seen in the morning sun. People in the camp get their water from a borehole, which is a hand pump to bring up water from the water table below. Here you can see a lady with a red jerry can on her head bringing water in from one of the boreholes in Orom.
Godfrey and I got a ride to Orom from AVSI. They dropped us off and were supposed to pick us up the next day, though they flaked and we had to take a lorry back to Kitgum. This photo is of the first stages of packing, it gets much, much more crowded than this. Rather than the normal 2 hours to get to Kitgum, it took 4 while sitting in the sun, on top of a full load of rice, packed in with 30 to 40 people. Godfrey is the guy in blue helping to pack.
The next photo is a better view of the lorry, and this is with 6 of usstanding on the side of the road! As you can see, no one is happy. It was a very miserable 4 hours. To add to it, the women get packed into the back, near the front of the vehicle. You can't see them in this photo as they are below the people sitting, but there had to be 15 of them in a small space. Overall, while it was a horrible trip, it was interesting to experience the real public transport here in the north for most people. Transport is expensive, and not very often, so people have to take what they can get.
Anyway, on to my vacation. I went first to Fort Portal, where there are a bunch of tea fields and crater lakes from old volcanoes. I stayed at a place on the edge of one of the craters. It was so green and beautiful. There were some monkeys living around the place and they would play in the trees right in front of my door.
There are other crater lakes, so I took a walk to another, Lake Nkruba, about 1 hour away. On the way a dog started to follow me, all the way to the crater. We went down a steep cliff, and the dog jumped right in and swam around.
There was also a group of monkeys living around the lake. They did not like the dog.
From Fort Portal I went to Kabale, near the border with Rwanda. I took the public transport, and it took 11 hours, mostly because I had to keep changing vehicles. From Fort Portal to Kasese, the conductor of the matatu (minibus), kept stopping to pick up people. There are three seats in a row, and we had 4 people in the row when we left. Its common here to do that, so I didn't mind, you get used to being smooshed. But the guy tried to put 5, then 6 people in my row, so I told him to stop letting people on and I refused to move. He said move over, and I told him that if he wants to make us miserable, he should get on the roof. Then I said again, louder, "get on the roof". Some people laughed, he stayed quiet. From then on, each time we stopped, he wouldn't put anyone in my row, though the row in front had 8 people in it!
The experience got me thinking. People here treat each other VERY badly sometimes, especially when it comes to comfort. The conductors don't care at all about the travelers, only money. But the travelers don't stick up for themselves. I got special treatment not because I'm white, but because I stood my ground, knowing I was right. Most Ugandans though will complain a little, huff and puff, then scoot over. Only a very few stand their ground, and those normally are treated just like I was. When I questioned other Ugandans about it, most say its not for long, why
complain? So I have suggested to them that this may be the reason for so little development. If you never ask for more, you won't get it. The conductors are just like the corrupt politicians that steal from the people and still get reelected. I guess when you are so poor, you just get used to dealing with all kinds of misery. This is obviously a little naive point of view, but I think there could be some truth to it.
So I arrive in Kabale at 8pm and it is very dark. The place is high in the mountains and cold, which made me very happy. I was booked at a hotel on an island, Bushara, in the lake near by. I was thinking, no problem, take a boda (motorcycle taxi). Problem is, the lake is actually further up hill on a very bad dirt road. Combined with the darkness, I manage to get to the lake after falling off the motorcycle twice. The first time I literally just bounced off the back after the bike dropped into a ditch on the side of the road. The second time the driver was just going too fast in the dirt and the bike slid out. I had my bags on my lap, so I got pinned underneath. Luckily I just got really dirty and not hurt.
This is where I stayed for 3 nights. It was amazing. The tent was great, you can see I had a nice bed, chairs, table, and of course, my coffee and a book.
For the first two days I did nothing, then on the third I went canoing with a guy named Richard. On the way back to the island we got stuck in a storm and had to paddle quickly across some pretty big waves. We had a few close calls, but made it ok.
I have also compiled some photos I took of the birds on the island. There are over 100 species, and in total I think I saw around 30 or 40. Even got to see some crested cranes (the bird on the Ugandan flag).
So thats basically most of what I've been up to for the last 2 weeks. If
anyone made it this far reading, then you have too much time on your
hands, get back to work!
27 Septermber 2007
Those of you that have been keeping up with the news know about all of the flooding up here in the north lately. It really never affected me, except that a few food items are getting scare and the roads have become almost unpassable. My boss was in town last week, so I flew down to Kampala to meet with him, then drove up to Gulu, then Kitgum with him. Here's a bit of the journey, which gives an idea of how bad the flooding was.
Like I said, the water made the roads almost impassable, so I opted for a flight aboard Eagle Air, one of the worst run airlines I have ever seen (yes, worse even than America West). A friend was having trouble traveling, so I called them looking for an extra seat in the morning and was told it was full. I get on the plane and of the 19 seats, 8 are empty the whole way to Kampala. In any case though, the flight was a lot of fun.
The view from the plane was great. These two photos give you an idea of how bad the flooding is up here. Trust me when I say that the rivers here don't normally have full grown trees in the middle of them.
All of the land in the north is (supposedly) owned by people. That is, there is no free land for people to take like there was only 50 years ago. As you can see here, that's probably true.
Here is an overhead view of one of the smaller camps.
While in Kampala I stayed at the Hotel Diplomate on Tank hill, which I think has the best view of the city possible. Most of the time I just stared out at the city with my Waragi (local gin made from cassava) and tonic.
The final photo is from the trip back up north. Can you guess where the road is in this picture? We took the right most part. Luckily for all of us, I was not driving!
A couple of people have also been curious about my living conditions, so I took some pictures and will describe them here also.
I'm living on the hilltop of Kitgum, so I;ve got a great view of the town. In this photo the town is just beyond the large field, where people play football in the early evenings. I pass through the field almost every day on the way to the market, which is at the far end of town.
On top of the hill there's an old colonial hotel that has been converted into a hostel for kids going to school there and in the area. In the back they have a badmitton courty with some nice equipment. I played a game with Deo and properly destroyed him with my moves. I had not played in 11 years, but it all came back to me pretty fast.
So I'll give a quick tour of my home. This is the front gate.
The porch where I eat dinner when I cook at home, which is about 5 days a week. Take note of the buckets and large tank for water. This is for catching the rain, which is what I am enjoying right now while writing this.
The backyard, where the neighbors chickens like to hang out. Notice also my water tank, and the city water tanks behind the house. With all this access, you would think water would not be a problem, but that is not the case. The town takes the water pretty fast, so there's almost no time when the tank is full enough to fill my tank. A few weeks ago we had to get three guys to fill up water from a bore hole, drive it up to the house and then carry it up to my tank, which is 1000 liters. That took a long time to do, and a pain in the ass.
Here's the kitchen with a simple gas stove, and that's it. No microwave, no refrigerator (though I have one coming), no oven. Pretty basic, but I get by. Most important item in the room is the Italian coffee maker on the stove. At least I'm drinking espresso. Oh, and of course, there's plenty of bad wine imported from South Africa which goes well with all of my Italian cooking. Lucky thing the Italians are really popular in Kitgum as most of my stuff comes from them!
Here's a breakdown of my average dinner costs: 700 USH for pasta, 200 USH for a small eggplant, 500 USH for tomato paste, 100 USH for garlic, 100 USH for onion, plus some chilli and salt. That's about 1600 USH for dinner, almost enough food to feed two. At 1760 USH per US dollar, I eat at around $0.90 a meal. Oh, and then there's the 20,000 USH bottle of highly overpriced wine I have with dinner, of which I can finish half on an especially nice, rainy evening.
An finally, my living room where I work and sometimes eat. The plates on the table are left over from lunch. I have a lady, Ketty, come in every day for a few hours to clean and cook lunch. The food is a local dish, Bo (spinach in peanut sauce) and Kwan Kal (millet bread), both of which I quite like.
I'll end with one of my many housemates. We have a verbal agreement to just avoid each other and kill as many mosquitos as possible...
10 Septermber 2007
Time has been flying here. I have settled into the house in Kitgum, though there has definitely been a decrease in living standards. The place is at the top of a hill, which is beautiful, but means water is a problem as it doesn't often have enough pressure to fill up the house tank. Electricity also often goes out for no reason. The last three days have in fact been without running water or power, so I used candles and bathed with a bucket. I had to do that in Thailand also, but I hate it. Sunday I had to get guys over to carry water up and pour it in the tank manually, which is about 6 meters high. It's a lot of work, as you may imagine.
Also, there are a lot of things missing in the house. I just got a small water heater for the shower installed, I'm getting a refrigerator hopefully this week, along with a water pump to minimize the water problems. Then I'm buying misc stuff to make the house look nice as the walls and floors are bare. In about a week or two the place should have all the comforts of my apartment in California, sans the TV.
My time is now split between my previous work in Gulu for NUSAF, which is going slowly and so does not take much of my time, and getting the new survey going that I will be managing in Kitgum with an Italian NGO, AVSI. I have worked on the questionnaire and begun some pre-testing. This week I will be pre-testing some experimental games we will play with people here to test for group cohesion and trust. I am especially excited about this becuase it was the subject of a feild paper of mine at UCI, so I have a lot of theoretical knowledge on the subject that I will now get to put into practice.
One interesting thing about the new project is we will be using PDAs to do the questionnaires, which means a lot of coding, but the benefits are really high as the data becomes immediately available with no waiting for data entry. Plus the PDAs look kinda cool.
Last week I went around with an AVSI team to meet some of their former recipients of small grants. There are a lot of people here in the north with HIV/Aids. Last week I met with a group of about 15 people of all ages, all with HIV. Some live a long time with it, though most die pretty fast. Some of them in this group looked bad, which means they will not be around long, even some of the young ones.
So most of the work is pretty depressing when I think about it too much. This place has a lot of problems, but I'm glad to be here and helping out in some small way.
One interesting, but very serious, problem is that many of the men do nothing here but drink. The women are responsible for the kids, the old and the sick. A woman of 18 might have 2 kids and be doing all of this on her own, while the man is off drinking all day. The reason for this is that the men have completely lost their traditional role in the families and villages. They've all been in displacement camps, so rather than gardening and making food for the whole family, they get food from the WFP without doing anything. For the men it's emasculating. Of course I don't think that's a reason for doing nothing for the family, but it makes everything much more complicated.
While out with AVSI I took a few pictures of some camps around the Kitgum district. Here are the highlights.
Down the road from the kid was a World Food Program site giving out food to the people in the camp. I took a few photos, then moved to higher ground to get a better photo and some video. A Ugandan man appraoched me, said he was with WFP and told me he was going to call the police to confiscate my camera. I thought he was looking for a bribe, but he was very serious about it and kept calling me a journalist. I guess you're not allowed to take photos of the WFP, though he couldn't tell me why. I did the thing I always do in this situation, I showed him my camera as I deleted "all" of the offending photos. Of course, I am good at hiding some, so I kept this one and a video. After some discussion with him and an army guy that came up, he took my info from the UCI ID and let me go. I think they like to control the images of food distribution, though I find this to be very poor, especially for an organization like the UN which is supposed to be transperant.
On the way out to Kidepo National Park, this IDP camp sits near one of the mountains. Thought this was kind of nice.
27 August 2007
Big changes have happened over the last few days. Last week I went to a national park in the north, Murchisen Falls, where I saw an amazing amount of animals. Then on Saturday my co-worker Pia left for home, and now I have moved further north to Kitgum.
Murchasen Falls was fantastic. I'm not much of a Safari kind of guy, but I really enjoyed it. In the span of 2 days we saw 80-90 giraffe, over 1000 antelope of different species, 30-40 elephants, 3 heards of water buffalo of over 200 each, at least 30 warthog and, best of all, a male, female and 2 baby lions.
In this photo we have, from left, Gowen, our driver, a hippo that wandered on shore at the ferry across the Nile river, Pia and Henry our guide.
Gowen is a Rastafarian, and a very strange Ugandan. His uncle is the commanding general of the northern government forces and owner of an exclusive hotel in Gulu. Not surprisingly, Gowen has had a very priviledged life, and his attitude is very much of a city guy, not useful as a safari driver. He was fun though.
Henry went out with us for a game drive and stayed with us when we camped. He's been with the park for 8 years, meaning he came in 1999, at the height of the rebel activity in the area. When I asked him if he's ever had to shoot at an animal in the park (notice the gun he's carrying), he said yes, and humans also. You can't see, but his gun is fully automatic. Back then, the park rangers were more like military as they had to fight off rebels trying to poach the animals. Today the safety is fine, and he seems to be deeply concerned about the park and the animals.
This is our campsite. We decided to camp in the bush for the night. Actually, I was indifferent, but Pia, true to her strong will, really wanted to do it, and so got it done. It was not easy to arrange, but we managed everything. This is a picture of the camp the next morning, and while it may not look like much, I was happy to see how we got it completely clean.
The benefit of camping in the bush is first, we got a fantastic view of the sunrise in the morning. Most importantly though, we were right there with the animals. I could hear the hippos and warthogs making noises all night, it was incredible.
I took this photo through a pair of binoculars. He was very far off of the road and I had been following him for about 30 seconds, unsure if it was a lion, before I asked the driver to stop the car. We got out and watched him slowly move across the hill, all of the animals watching him very closely, as you can see. He never did attack anything, but we suspect he was distracting the animals so the female could attack from the other side. After a while a group of Kop started running in the distance, but we couldn't see if there was a female lurking around.
This is a video of the falls at the park. The amount of force was just amazing. I was also surprised that they let you go right up to the ledge.
This is my favorite video. On our last day there I commented to the tour guide that I wanted to see a lion, so we drove a bit to an area he knew and we came right up on her. We are as close to her as the video suggests, probably less than 5 meters. The lioness watched us very intently, while the two cubs just played around ignoring us. Eventually she has enough and comes right at us, ready to attack.
One of the best parts of the video is the audio. Notice the tour guide saying over and over "Pia, do you have your photo?". He wanted us to get out fast, but she was hanging out the other side taking photos, completely oblivious. I can be heard saying, "ok, lets go" a few times as I am sure the lion was looking right at me, licking her lips! It was actually really close, and my heart was pounding after.
We were almost attacked in the park on three seperate occations. The night before we came on a large group of elephants walking through the road, and one was about 2 seconds from charging at the car. Then, while leaving, we came upon a lone male elephant, which are particulary violent. Pia, not thinking, says "Oh, we don't have a picture of an elephant close up, stop the car". A guide we were giving a ride and myself started yelling "drive, drive". The elephant extended his ears all the way out and made the loudest noise, then took a step or two forward. Luckily, our driver ignored Pia and floored it.
This is a video of giraffes eating. We saw so many of them, and this is probably not as exciting as the lion, but I love to watch these guys eat. They really are quite amazing.
This photo is from Pia's goodbye party. In the photo we have Pia, then moving clockwise there's Winnie, Norma (from the office), Winnie's brother, Oscar and Dorothy (both also from the office), and then Martin, one of the guards at the house and a really nice guy, though he never smiles in photos for some reason.
The house staff cooked pizze for everyone, and I cooked some Asian noodles with eggplant. I was surprised at the turnout, as all of the attendees were Ugandan. I wasn't expecting any of them to show up and it to only be muzungu, but the Ugandans proved to be more reliable. Here Pia is opening her goodbye presents, which everyone brought for her.
The party was great, but I was too tired to make it to the club afterwards. The next day Pia left, which was actually harder for me than I was expecting. I felt very lonely and sad the whole day. Our work relationship was difficult sometimes becuase she has a very forceful personality, but personally I consider her to be my favorite person I have met while traveling. She is always laughing with people, has an incredibly big heart and takes her work very seriously. Once she finishes her master's degree I have no doubt she will make a first class social worker.
20 August 2007
I have just completed my first Wikipedia article, which is on Labora Farms. You can find it at:
Please feel to edit or comment on any part of it.
14 August 2007
This week I have a decided to put some of my videos up in www.youtube.com and share them you all.
A few days ago I got the opportunity to visit a former Northern Uganda Social Action Fund (NUSAF) project (for those unaware, NUSAF is the World Bank funded project I am here to evaluate) called Labora Farms. This video is of Captain Ray, one of the members and a former captain in the LRA rebel group, explaining how he has been accepted back into the community after 18 years. I am really fascinated by the place and am going back soon to record some interviews. I've started writing a paper on the farm also, and I'll post it on my website soon.
This weekend I went back to Jinja to visit Loretta again before she left since I love the place so much. Can you believe there's a place that serves Mexican food there? It's not bad either, though expensive. This video is a little silly, but it gives some perspective to how incredibly big these storks are. They are all over the south, incredibly big and very ugly. They are especially thriving in the trash dumps since their beaks are strong enough to break through the plastic bags everyone uses here.
The final video is one I took from the source of the Nile river in Jinja. The water is just incredible to watch. I added some music from a DJ I met here. His group is called D+S, from the album Sunny Beats. It's some good chill music, though I'm not sure if you can find it in the US.
6 August 2007
I have just returned from Jinja, a town at the source of the Nile river. I was visiting a freind I made in Gulu, Loretta. She is working at an orphanage in Jinja for the summer where they have 31 kids of all ages, 8 months to 18 years.
The system of orphanges here is crazy. The government has no place for the kids, so they either get placed in a privately funded orphanage, or they're dumped on the street, which happens often. The kids in Jinja are very lucky since there's a large group of American and European orphanages with some good funding, but a lot still fall through the cracks.
Here is one of those rare quiet moments at the orphanage, when most everyone is watching TV. The woman on the couch is Deidra. She is 100% American through and through. Strangely enough, she's from Santa Ana! She married a Ugandan man and has settled down in Jinja now for 9 years. The orphanage is sponsered by her non-denominational church in the US. While she has hired a lot of help for the kids, I still think she has one of the hardest jobs I have ever seen. I really got to like the kids, but I couldn't take more than about 30 minutes straight with them!
Jinja is at the source of the Nile as it comes out of Lake Vistoria. This is a shot looking down river. Just at the end there is a large dam that powers most of Uganda, but sadly has replaced some very nice falls. Loretta and I had the chance to enjoy some relaxing time here at the cafe. It's a good place for a beer with your meal at 1pm.
This is a view of part of some slums in Gulu, the town where I am now living. This is not my house, don't worry. I'll get a photo of my place up soon. I am living at an Italian NGO guest house in what is called the senior quarter because it used to house all of the colonial whites. Not much has changed I guess. The organization is called AVSI and has been in the north for 23 years now. They have never left, even when the insecurity got really bad.
30 July 2007
Things are settling down for me now. I am now living in a home in Gulu. I'll get some pictures of that soon, it's very nice.
Last week I was in Soroti. Nice place, but electricity was a problem. This is a picture of the whole town from a very rocky hill I climbed. I liked the place, very small town, but too difficult to get work done.
Over the weekend I went to Sipi Falls, which is three waterfalls hidden inside of a large mountain. You can see all three stages in the photo. I was able to get closer, but I think this came out best. I liked it there, but it was not as cool as the waterfalls in Thailand.
Oh, and I was in the capital, Kampala, two weeks ago. I like it, but it's really crowded. This is a photo of the "taxis" park, which means mini-bus here. I think this photo is so hilarious since they are packed in like crazy, but thats Kampala.
26 July 2007
Afoyo (that’s hello in Acholi). This is my first try at a weblog, hope it works ok!
I have been in the field for the last week and have had a lot of trouble getting internet access. I am back in my office now in Gulu and so have a high speed, reliable connection. This entry will be a little longer than the next few.
I took this photo of the Sahara desert from my airplane coming in. We left from Amsterdam and flew straight down the continent. I was lucky enough to be in first class during that leg of the trip, so I was very comfortable. 28 hours total to get here. I love this photo so much because it shows how far that desert just stretches out. I like deserts a lot, but I can’t imagine living in that!
I drove us out to the camp using my bosses SUV. Getting there was tough because the road was bad. Coming back though it rained a little and I got us stuck in the mud really good (or bad). It took over an hour and 20 villagers to get us out. Part of the problem is the 4 wheel drive wasn’t working well. For a while, only one wheel was going. We were all a big mess, though I escaped most of the mud since I was driving! Overall, it was a lot of fun, in hindsight.
This photo of some kids is from the camp where I took the previous photo. We went out here to do some interviews with the people to see how they are doing. Everyone in the north was forced into camps about 8-10 years ago by the government in an effort to crack down on the rebels. I guess it helped, but these people were given nothing. They all had to even build their own homes with no supplies. They are very poor and still have a lot of problems, but they are slowly moving back to their original land, and things are getting a little better. 3 or 4 years ago I hear it was really, really bad. The government here does nothing for them, but a lot of NGOs have shown up with support.
The local word for white is muzungu, and all of the kids yell it at me. Last week I went with a team to the field to do on site verification of the proposed projects to be funded. We visited about 10 projects in different villages and camps by a town called Katakwi, which is not on any map. If you find a map, its halfway between Soroti and Moroto. In each of the projects, the small kids would come up to me and hold my hand. In one place a girl of about 4 stood next to me and kept chasing the other kids
away. I guess she wanted me all to herself. But that’s not my Ugandan girlfriend, don’t worry.
While on the verification we visited a woman’s sewing group. I was so touched by them. They are 15 girls, most of them under 18 with kids. The fathers are no where around (it is all too common for the men to have nothing to do with the family), so they are taking care of the kids and the old all by themselves. I can’t imagine having to deal with that much responsibility when I was only 16. I really hope that we can get them some money, and that it helps them out.
This final picture is of the team I went out with to do the verification. I don’t know the woman in the middle very well, but the guys name is Ambrose and the young lady is Winnie.
Ambrose is an amazing person. Can you believe he’s 41? And he still parties and drinks like he’s 25. Years ago he was in charge of some of the displacement camps in Kitgum. He also ran for mayor of the town, but lost by a small amount (at least, that’s what he says). He is well off, but genuinely worried about his people here. He’s a tough guy when he needs to be, but he is a lot of fun to work for. Him, Winnie and I went out one night to a club and danced until 2:30am, but he was ready to keep going.